Biography of: Paul Robeson
Author: Eric Pertee
Timeline
Leadership Style
Political Philosophy
Timeline
- Paul Robeson was born on April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey; Paul Robeson was the youngest of five children. His father was a runaway slave who went on to attend and graduate from Lincoln University. Robeson's mother was from an abolitionist Quaker family.
- In 1915, Paul Robeson won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers University. While attending Rutgers despite violence and racism from teammates and officials, he won a coveted 15 varsity letter in four sports baseball, basketball, track and was named twice to the All-American Football Team. Also while in college he received the Phi Beta Kappa key in his junior year, belonged to the Cap & Skull Honor Society and graduated as Valedictorian (Phi Beta Kappa was the first Greek fraternity found at William and Mary College for white college men). In 1995 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame 19 years after his death. Despite the fact that he was African-American Paul was seen as on of the more popular figures on his campus
- After his four-year stand at Rutgers University he was then accepted into Columbia Law School. He attended Columbia Law School from 1919-1923 where he met and married Eslanda Cordoza Goode. To pay for college he played professional football in the NFL on the weekends. His wife was the first woman to ever head a pathology laboratory.
- Once he graduated from Columbia he soon took a job with a law firm but left when white secretaries refused to take dictation from him. He left the firm to use his artistic talents in the theater and music to promote African-American history and culture.
- Robeson began his acting and film career in 1924 with is first film Body and Soul. Robeson went on to star in 11 films including Jericho (1937) and Proud Valley (1939).
- Paul Robeson was a world traveler and spent much of his time n Europe. Robeson's travel showed him that racism was not as virulent in Europe as in the U.S. While performed and traveling in the United State Robeson found very few restaurants that would serve him and when he performed in New York city Blacks were seated in the upper balconies and his shows were often surrounded by threats and harassment. Although while in Europe on his opening night performance of Emperor Jones he brought the audience to their feet for twelve encores.
- Paul Robeson earned international acclaim for his lead role in Othello, for which he won the Donaldson Award for Best Acting Performance (1944). Paul Robeson used his deep voice to promote Black spirituals, to share the cultures of other countries, and to benefit the labor and social movements of his time. He sang for peace in 25 languages and throughout the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Africa. Robeson became known as a citizen of the world, equally comfortable with the people of Moscow, Nairobi, and Harlem.
- During the 1940's Robeson continued to perform and speak out against racism, in support of labor, and for peace. He was a champion of working people and organized labor. He spoke and performed at strikes rallies, conferences, and labor festivals worldwide. Robeson worked tirelessly for international cooperation and protested the growing Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR in hopes to form a friendship and respect between the two countries. In 1945, he headed an organization that challenged President Truman to support an anti-lynching law. In the late 1940's when dissent was scarcely tolerated in the U.S., Robeson openly questioned why African Americans should fight in the army of a government that tolerated racism. Because of what he spoke out about, Robeson was accused by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of being a Communist. During this time he saw an attack on anyone who work for international friendship and equality was persecuted. These accusations nearly ended his career. Many of his concerts were canceled, in 1949 two interracial outdoor concerts in Peekskill, N.Y. were attacked by racist mobs while state police stood by and watched. Robeson responded, "I'm going to sing wherever the people want me to sing…and I won't be frightened by crosses burning in the Peekskills or anywhere else." Which simply showed his undying support of racial equality and hopes for change in the U.S.
- Paul Robeson's passport was revoked in 1950 in the U.S., leading to an eight-year battle to resecure it and travel again. During those years, Robeson studied Chinese, met with Albert Einstein to discuss prospects for world peace, published his autobiography; here I stand, and sang at Carnegie Hall. Two major labor-related events took place in during this time. In 1952 and 1953, he held two concerts at Peace Arch Park on the U.S.-Canadian border, singing for 30-40,000 people in both countries. In 1957, he made a transatlantic radiophone broadcast from New York to coal miners in Wales.
- After finally receiving his American Passport back in 1958 Paul Robeson planned is last tour. In 1960, he made his last concert tour to New Zealand and Australia. In the last days Robeson in very ill health retired from the public life in 1963. He died on January 23, 1976, at the age of 77, in Philadelphia with family.
- Paul Robeson has received many national and international accolades for his sports performance, theater work, his acting and roles in the civil rights movement. Paul Robeson used his music and amazing acting talent to help change a world and nation caught in racial and human inequality.
Leadership Style
Paul Robeson's leadership styles was democratic. The best examples of this were his songs of peace. He wanted to help the movement of the world but also wanted promote the education of all people about the black culture. He stood up for a race that was being treated unfair and became the voice and symbol for change. He was not a leader of an individual group but was a leader for all people who seek out change and peace of a nation and the world.
Political Philosophy
Paul Robeson's political philosophy was one of justice for all meaning everyone in the world. He wanted to see all people in the United States treated equally but also work for the establishment of peace between all nations. This can be best seen in his paper delivery on "Paul Robeson and the Afro-American struggle", held at the Academy of Arts, Berlin, in the German Democratic Republic, on April 13-14, 1971. In this paper delivery the discuss the "parallels in many ways to the struggles of colonial peoples all over the world to rid themselves of exploiters and slave-master." He spoke out on Cheap Labor, The New Jerusalem, Council on African Affairs, and Nixon's lie. He tied in all the problems in the East with all of the major issues that were being dealt with here in the United Stated. Paul Robeson wanted to see a nation and world that treated everyone equally, as well as world at peace with each other.
The Liberator, 1937. Paul Robeson said then:
"Every artist, every scientist, must decided now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights… The battlefield is everywhere; there is no sheltered rear… Fascism fights to destroy the culture which society has created; created through pain suffering, through desperate toil, but with unconquerable will and lofty vision. -What matters a man's profession or vocation? Fascism is no respecter of persons. It makes no distinction between combatants and non-combatants… The artist must take sides; he must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I have no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people; despoiled of their lands, their women ravished, their culture destroyed… I say the true artist cannot hold himself aloof. The legacy of culture from our predecessors is in danger. It is the foundation upon which we build a still more lofty edifice. It belongs no only to us, not only to the present generation-it belongs to posterity and must be defended to the death."
These were Paul Robeson's words then and they still hold true the same today. Paul Robeson would stop at nothing to see the advancement of people in the world.
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